The work of Taiwan playwright-director Stan Lai (Lai Sheng-chuan) Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land (Anlian Taohuayuan) has never been staged formally on the Chinese mainland, yet it is a classic drama throughout China. More than 50 versions of the play have been put on by university students' drama troupes. On a much larger scale, pirate DVDs of the play and film have been watched by a large number of people.

Successful drama

Twenty years after its premiere in Taipei, Lai will co-operate with the National Theatre Company of China to stage Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land on the mainland. In Beijing, dates have already been confirmed for November 18-26 at the Capital Theatre and December 22 to January 7 at PLA Opera House, and in Shanghai from December 8 to 13 at the Shanghai Grand Theatre.

"Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land is a very big play," Lai told China Daily. "Although I am the playwright and director of the play, it is much bigger than myself."

It is a combination of two plays Secret Love, a tragedy set in the modern times, and In Peach Blossom Land, a comedy set in ancient times.

Jiang Binliu and Yun Zhifan are two lovers who meet in Shanghai after the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937-45), but are parted during the civil war. They lose touch for decades until Jiang is dying in a hospital in Taipei.

The older story is about Laotao who leaves home outraged after he finds his wife Chunhua having an affair with Yuan. By a strange accident he ventures into the Peach Blossom Land, a utopia once described by the Eastern Jin Dynasty (AD 317-420) poet Tao Yuanming. There he meets two lovers who look exactly like Chunhua and Yuan.

Laotao cannot forget Chunhua and wants to reconcile and take her to live in the Peach Blossom Land. When he goes home, he finds that Chunhua and Yuan have become an unhappy couple just like Chunhua and himself in the past. Laotao tries to escape back to Peach Blossom Land, but can never find it again.

These two stories seem to be irrelevant, but when they are combined in Lai's play, the result has become one of the most successful dramas in Taiwan. The thread to sew them up in the play is the mistaken scheduling of a theatre, which arranged two different troupes to rehearse on the same day. Both troupes were going to perform in two days, At last they compromised to rehearse on the same stage in turn.

What the audience of "Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land" will see is the juxtaposition of scenes from the two plays, as well as some other stories hidden in the process.

Source of inspiration

The inspiration for Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land came from years ago, when Lai was doing his PhD in drama at the University of California, Berkeley. In the study of Greek plays, Lai found that in ancient Greece, a complete theatrical performance consisted of three tragedies and a satire of the three previous tragedies.

Why is that? Lai believed that when the emotion is stirred to a certain degree, a satire of this emotion can create better purification. He also found example in the Japanese theatre. During the intermission of the serious Noh Theatre, a light-hearted Kyogen play is usually performed.

Lai's idea of creating a play that juxtaposes a comedy and tragedy was embodied after he came back to Taiwan in 1983. One afternoon Lai was watching the final rehearsal of another director's play, which would premiere that night. However, from 4 pm to 6 pm, a graduation ceremony of a kindergarten was inserted by the theatre without notice in advance. While actors were still rehearsing, banners for the ceremony were hung up and a piano was carried on to the stage, creating a sense of absurdity to Lai.

"Such disorder in the management of theatres was very common in the 1980s Taiwan," said Lai. "No one knew, and no one cared what the theatre workers did, but this incident became the direct inspiration for Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land."

Lai founded his own group the Performance Workshop in 1984. Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land was the group's second work, which premiered in 1986. At that time, the Performance Workshop was still a semi-professional group. Many actors had other jobs, and the rehearsal hall was Lai's own parlour.

The play was so warmly received that all the scheduled 12 performances were sold out, and they had to add another 11. In the past 20 years, Lai and the Performance Workshop went on to stage three other versions of the play, in 1991, 1999 and 2006.

Each time Lai redirected the play, he tried to make some renovations. In the latest version, the Ming Hwa Yuan Gezai Opera (traditional Chinese opera popular in East China's Fujian and Taiwan provinces) Troupe performed the part of Peach Blossom Land, making the play a real colliding of two troupes.

More shows

Lai has put on three of his plays on the mainland: Red Sky, He and His Two Wives and Millennium Teahouse, and is looking forward to exploring bigger market on the mainland.

Lai is looking forward to a total of 100 performances of the new version of Secret Love In Peach Blossom Land. English sub-titles will be provided for foreign audiences in China.

Tours to Hong Kong in 2007, and to Taiwan and the United States in 2008 are also planned.

Talking about the difficulty for many theatre workers in the mainland to attract theatre-goers, Lai is confident that Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land will be welcomed. "A good play has the power to create audiences," said Lai.

(China Daily October 19, 2006)